MESOPOTAMIA NEWS Opinion: Israel needs to offer a strategic  umbrella to Gulf states 

The Gulf states, Turkey and Egypt understand that the US is not expected to go to war with Iran. It means a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race. An Israeli strategic umbrella may moderate it

Ami Rojkes Dombe | 15/03/2021 ISRAEL DEFENSE  – The rise of Biden to power and the lack of will and ability by Israel or the US to destroy the Iranian nuclear program by a military operation during Trump’s term turned back the clock from Israel’s standpoint. It means that the US is headed toward an agreement with Iran, including the partial or complete lifting of sanctions, the strengthening of Iran’s economy, and zero chance for US military action against Iran or support for such action by Israel.

Also, it is possible that the Mossad’s activity in Iran will be restricted by US pressure. In such a reality, Israel is left with three main courses of action. First, continued collection of intelligence on the nuclear program in order to diplomatically influence the US and Europe. Second, prevention of a nuclear arms race by the Gulf states, Turkey and Egypt. Third, updating the perception of nuclear deterrence of Iran.

In this article I would like to focus on the course of preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East following the accords with Iran, and the absence of an Israeli or American or combined military action against the nuclear program. If the reports are correct, I will claim that one of the main processes that Israel needs to carry out is to offer the Gulf states, as well as Egypt and Turkey, a nuclear umbrella. According to foreign sources, the State of Israel has an offensive nuclear capability.

Why an arms race?

Iran has apparently been working on a nuclear bomb since the revolution in 1979, but until the 2000s the topic was not on the international public agenda. It is possible that this was because the progress by the Iranians on the route was thought to be slow. Maybe the Iranians were thought to be incapable. It should be mentioned that the Iranians bought data and products from the Pakistani Khan network that was exposed in the beginning of the 2000s by the US.

Following Khan’s capture, and the exposure of his network, it became clear that the Iranians were apparently much more advanced than what was thought in the West. In Israel, Arik Sharon appointed Meir Dagan in the beginning of the 2000s to delay the nuclear program of Iran. Barack Obama took office in 2009 and decided that he was headed for agreements with Iran in exchange for UN supervision of Iran’s nuclear facilities. It was partial supervision, excluding military facilities and secret facilities, but Obama did not want to go to war with Iran. And neither did the presidents who came after him.

It should be mentioned that Obama arrived after Bush’s failure in Iraq. Bush occupied the country based on the claim that it had a nuclear program, but it turned out that it didn’t. The press “crucified” Bush because he and his intelligence services lied to the American public about it. That was also the reason that Bush quietly approved of Israel’s attack on the Syrian reactor by Israel in 2007 and did not order the attack himself. Bush was not the only one who failed in dealing with a country developing nuclear weapons. His predecessor, Clinton, failed in North Korea.

This means that the will of American presidents to use military force to deal with a country developing nuclear weapons is almost nonexistent. All of the countries around Iran understand this, including Israel, the Gulf states, Turkey and Egypt. For them, an Iranian bomb is an established fact. You have to differentiate between what you sell to the public and what is thought by the professionals in the field of strategy whose job is to deal with a nuclear Iran.

In this kind of reality, all of the countries that were mentioned, except Israel, which according to foreign reports has nuclear weapons, are, in practice, strategically inferior because they do not have a nuclear bomb. This kind of inferiority creates an arms race. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, primarily, which see themselves as regional leaders, cannot remain strategically inferior to nuclear Iran. Therefore, they are already thinking about building a military nuclear program. It is possible that some of them have already started to take action.

An Israeli nuclear umbrella?

If Israel wants to prevent a nuclear arms race, it has a number of ways of doing so. The most well-known among them is the “Begin doctrine” that was established after the bombing of the Iraqi reactor. However, the doctrine failed in Pakistan and in Iran (until today). This doctrine is characterized by the one-dimensional vision of the security establishment in Israel, and is based on, of course, planes with bombs that are as big as possible.

Another way is diplomacy. The normalization processes that Israel has been promoting over the past year are part of this way. The Jewish lobby in Washington is also part of it. In general, “bribing” a hostile country by strengthening economic ties and promising to support its interests vis-a-vis the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The third way is abandoning the ambiguity. Namely, if the foreign reports are true, using the Israeli nuke as deterrence against the Iranian nuke.  In other words, Israel will say to the Gulf states, Turkey and Egypt that if there will be an Iranian nuclear threat against them, Israel will make a threat of its own that “equals” the Iranian one. In this way, the nuclear deterrence will be maintained in the Middle East, without the need for additional military nuclear programs by those countries.

This is not a new idea, but rather an idea that the Americans and the Russians endowed after the end of World War II with the NATO alliance facing the Warsaw Pact. The same idea – each nuclear power extends a nuclear umbrella over its protectorate, and thus prevents proliferation of the technology. Of course, such an umbrella has incidental diplomatic advantages. But the principle is simple. You and I have nukes. If you use one against my friend, I will use one against you.

Israel, as mentioned, can use the same method to delay a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The problem? No country believes it. Yes, not all countries in Europe developed nuclear weapons after World War II. Britain succeeded and gave it up. Is it because of a nuclear umbrella? It depends whom you ask. The development of a nuclear bomb, by nature, is “dirty work”.  If a country is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is officially banned from doing so. If it isn’t, it declares such an intention in advance.

In the two cases, the process of development of a nuclear bomb is carried out in secret, hidden as much as possible from the public, and certainly from the international community. It means that it is a process that demands a long-term political commitment (development could take a number of years), financial commitment, imports of products and materials that do not exist in the country, engineering knowledge and supportive industrial infrastructure.

In other words, it is a complex, expensive, long-term project with the likelihood of a number of failures along the way. This requires a combination of political and geopolitical circumstances at a specific period of time. Due to the complexity of developing this type of weapon, the majority of countries in the world chose not to do so at all, some are on the way to doing so, and some developed the weapon but later relinquished it.

How much is the absence of nuclear weapons the result of a nuclear umbrella or the complexity of the project? That’s an open question. In the case of the Gulf states, Egypt and Turkey, it is a process that is worthwhile for the State of Israel to try, even though there is little likelihood of it being adopted. The alternative is dealing with a military nuclear program in at least three countries – Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Those countries, as mentioned, will not be able to remain strategically inferior to Iran.